| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: town.
Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was
inclined to evade the small complications of existence. This trait
of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain,
and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity -
like a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a
toad. His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that
merely outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn
into easily. It had amused him rather to keep that "friend" in the
dark about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed
other company than his own, for there was in him something of the
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: morrow, and spent the money in a score of different ways. Then came
domestic details, lamentations over the excessive dearness of
potatoes, or the length of the winter and the high price of block
fuel, together with forcible representations of amounts owing to the
baker, ending in an acrimonious dispute, in the course of which such
couples reveal their characters in picturesque language. As I
listened, I could make their lives mine, I felt their rags on my back,
I walked with their gaping shoes on my feet; their cravings, their
needs, had all passed into my soul, or my soul had passed into theirs.
It was the dream of a waking man. I waxed hot with them over the
foreman's tyranny, or the bad customers that made them call again and
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: valueless head in place of the one full of charms and worth . . . a
rank head for a sweet-smelling one; a hated head for a head of love."
"Ah, Madame!" cried the washerwoman, "suppose we dress up in the
garments of a nobleman, the steward's son who is mad for me, and
wearies me much, and having thus accoutered him, we push him out
through the postern.
Thereupon the two women looked at each other with assassinating eyes.
"This marplot," said she, "once slain, all those soldiers will fly
away like geese."
"Yes, but will not the count recognise the wretch?"
And the countess, striking her breast, exclaimed, shaking her head,
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
